... brodetto and grilled with silverbeet

Ingredients for the brodetto:

• eel
• olive oil
• three large onions
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• bunch of parsley
• one hot chilli
• four tomatoes
• salt
• pepper
• Vegeta
• 200 ml white wine.

Ingredients for the grilled eel:

• eel
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• a few bay leaves.

Side dish:

• bundle of silverbeet
• two potatoes
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil.

If eels weren't so similar to snakes, I would clean and prepare them myself more often, grilled and alla brodetto. But this time I generously let Medo's kitchen clean it while I assigned myself the task of  'cleaning' the plates afterwards, which was not trouble at all.
Medo had another, more difficult task: to wait for the eels to appear after a decent downpour of rain. The river proved to be the richest in eels at Šukica, the source of the eels for these dishes, so we decided to give it credit for it by naming this recipe after it.
Cleaning eels is no big deal, if you don't find them disgusting. You just need to remove the stomach, and as with hake, it has no scales.

When preparing the brodetto, chop the cleaned eel sideways into pieces that are a few centimetres thick.
Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a pan and add three large sliced onions, parsley, some garlic, one chilli (or only half if you don't like it that hot). Then mash four fresh tomatoes, add salt, pepper and Vegeta and finally add 200 ml of white wine over everything. Leave it to cook for another five or ten minutes to let the alcohol evaporate. It is only then that we add chopped eels and cook for another 10 or 15 minutes. When done, serve with polenta.
To grill the eel, simply thread it onto a skewer to form an S-shape. Season with pepper, salt, bay leaf and olive oil, and put it onto the grill. The grilled eel goes well with silverbeet or spinach. Pick the nicest leaves from the bundle of silverbeet, cut the roots if they are too thick and add the leaves to salted boiling water. After 10 or 15 minutes when cooked through, dry the silverbeet and mash it, if you like to eat it this way. Remember to add two, finely chopped potatoes before the silverbeet is done, but remember that too much potato with green vegetables is not good because it 'kills' the sweet taste. Finally, season the silverbeet with salt, pepper and the essential olive oil. Instead of silverbeet, you can serve the grilled eel with cabbage and oil if you prefer. 
This time I couldn't decide which dish to eat more of - eel brodetto or grilled eel, as I enjoyed both just as much! I was just a bit sorry because I was invited to another party after Medo's kitchen, at Ariana's place, my friend from dance classes, where there was Crivac (homemade prosciutto) try (her husband is from Crivac). I wasn't sure if I could find any more room for it! Yeah, right, I can't look but not taste when plates parade in front me - it's as if I can still hear Kapula talking about my 'poor' appetite. Judge for yourselves what your appetite is like when it comes to eel when you try out these recipes.

Source: What Will I Cook Today? –  Notes from Medo's Kitchen
Text: Mia Sesartić, Recipes: Zoran Kljaković Gašpić – Medo